Ziner wrote:But you could legitimately work with the other side with out putting your second term in danger.

You're right, and that would help. But it wouldn't solve the problem of one side trying to block and stop each and every thing the other side wants to do every time at all costs. I don't think there is a solution for that.

“No. 1,” declared Mitt Romney in Wednesday’s debate, “pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan.” No, they aren’t — as Mr. Romney’s own advisers have conceded in the past, and did again after the debate.

Mitt Romney campaign surrogate Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) admitted that the GOP presidential candidates was changing his positions and moving towards the middle in order to win over voters, during an appearance on CNN’s Starting Point on Friday morning. Gingrey’s comments, reminiscent of Romney advisor Eric Fehrnstrom’s claim that Romney would “Etch-A-Sketch” his positions after the GOP primary, came in response to the candidate’s recent claim that his 47% remarks were “completely wrong.”

Virtually every time Mr. Romney spoke, he misrepresented the platform on which he and Paul Ryan are actually running. The most prominent example, taking up the first half-hour of the debate, was on taxes. Mr. Romney claimed, against considerable evidence, that he had no intention of cutting taxes on the rich or enacting a tax cut that would increase the deficit.

This simply isn't true. Mr. Romney wants to restore the Bush-era tax cut that expires at the end of this year and largely benefits the wealthy. He wants to end the estate tax and the gift tax, providing a huge benefit only to those with multimillion-dollar estates, at a cost of more than $1 trillion over a decade to the deficit.

Mitt Romney put forward a strong performance, transforming back into his 2002 Massachusetts moderate mold, a belated advocate of bipartisan leadership. It would have had a lot more impact if it hadn't contradicted almost every policy statement Romney has made on the campaign trail since he started running for president. This flip-flopping is a force of habit, but it was used to great effect, reflecting a campaign and a candidate finally focused on the general electorate.

Apparently running on a platform of bullshit and flip-flopping/pandering to get votes is the way to win debates now. How can anyone say for certain that they know what Mitt Romney will do as president? Even he doesn't know.

Today, with a good jobs report, conservatives are predictably trying to discredit the numbers, as they do with every poll that shows Romney down. I don't even know why I posted this as I can tell most people will just look the other way. La la la la liberalism la la la can't hear you la la la Romney is winning la la la.

My favorite part of this campaign has been Republicans decrying voter fraud and trying to institute ID laws/poll taxes.... and then committing blatant voter/registration fraud in multiple states.

http://youtu.be/GQZ5_qdHLV8In past debates, there have been no notes allowed. I don't know if that was the case in this one but if not, why the discretion/sleight of hand? (Can't get video to post; it shows Romney clearly taking a piece of paper out of his pocket and placing it on his stand)

“No. 1,” declared Mitt Romney in Wednesday’s debate, “pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan.” No, they aren’t — as Mr. Romney’s own advisers have conceded in the past, and did again after the debate.

Mitt Romney campaign surrogate Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) admitted that the GOP presidential candidates was changing his positions and moving towards the middle in order to win over voters, during an appearance on CNN’s Starting Point on Friday morning. Gingrey’s comments, reminiscent of Romney advisor Eric Fehrnstrom’s claim that Romney would “Etch-A-Sketch” his positions after the GOP primary, came in response to the candidate’s recent claim that his 47% remarks were “completely wrong.”

Virtually every time Mr. Romney spoke, he misrepresented the platform on which he and Paul Ryan are actually running. The most prominent example, taking up the first half-hour of the debate, was on taxes. Mr. Romney claimed, against considerable evidence, that he had no intention of cutting taxes on the rich or enacting a tax cut that would increase the deficit.

This simply isn't true. Mr. Romney wants to restore the Bush-era tax cut that expires at the end of this year and largely benefits the wealthy. He wants to end the estate tax and the gift tax, providing a huge benefit only to those with multimillion-dollar estates, at a cost of more than $1 trillion over a decade to the deficit.

Mitt Romney put forward a strong performance, transforming back into his 2002 Massachusetts moderate mold, a belated advocate of bipartisan leadership. It would have had a lot more impact if it hadn't contradicted almost every policy statement Romney has made on the campaign trail since he started running for president. This flip-flopping is a force of habit, but it was used to great effect, reflecting a campaign and a candidate finally focused on the general electorate.

Apparently running on a platform of bullshit and flip-flopping/pandering to get votes is the way to win debates now. How can anyone say for certain that they know what Mitt Romney will do as president? Even he doesn't know.

Today, with a good jobs report, conservatives are predictably trying to discredit the numbers, as they do with every poll that shows Romney down. I don't even know why I posted this as I can tell most people will just look the other way. La la la la liberalism la la la can't hear you la la la Romney is winning la la la.

My favorite part of this campaign has been Republicans decrying voter fraud and trying to institute ID laws/poll taxes.... and then committing blatant voter/registration fraud in multiple states.

http://youtu.be/GQZ5_qdHLV8In past debates, there have been no notes allowed. I don't know if that was the case in this one but if not, why the discretion/sleight of hand? (Can't get video to post; it shows Romney clearly taking a piece of paper out of his pocket and placing it on his stand)

swerb wrote:Candidates taking positions to appease the base of their parties during the primary season and then moving closer to the middle for the general election?

No way. Never seen that one before.

Honestly, if he had come out this week and dropped some sort of details to back-up the new platform he unveiled on national TV it would have been excusable, but as it stands his victory was him huffing a bunch of air and hoping to blow down a brick house.

I do think some of the concepts he spoke on were interesting ideas that should be explored, unfortunately in the modern American political landscape nothing will ever be explored and no details will be provided.

swerb wrote:Candidates taking positions to appease the base of their parties during the primary season and then moving closer to the middle for the general election?

No way. Never seen that one before.

Honestly, if he had come out this week and dropped some sort of details to back-up the new platform he unveiled on national TV it would have been excusable, but as it stands his victory was him huffing a bunch of air and hoping to blow down a brick house.

I do think some of the concepts he spoke on were interesting ideas that should be explored, unfortunately in the modern American political landscape nothing will ever be explored and no details will be provided.

Evidenced by the instant polling on who won the debate, MANY more voters were impressed with some of the common sense, plainly spoken ideas on how to create jobs and get the economy going than they were concerned about differences from the further right positions Romney adopted during the primary season while fending off Newt, Santorum, Curly, and Moe.

And as you said, Obama was completely and totally unable to rebut these position tweaks. The Romney camp successfully calculated that Obama would come in overconfident and was being force fed by his handlers NOT to come off as confrontational ... to play it safe. So in hindsight, it was a genius strategy that was perfectly executed by Romney en route to one of the greatest debate slaughters in American political history.

The goal is to get elected. 90% of the things both candidates are throwing out there will either never happen or are complete bull shit.

"It's like dating a woman who hates you so much she will never break up with you, even if you burn down the house every single autumn." ~ Chuck Klosterman on Browns fans relationship with the Browns

I think if the next two debates show the same results, it can absolutely influence the election.

Obama supporters love watching him give speeches, they love the rhetoric pushed by his campaign, they love the emails and tweets from "him" they get everyday. They love the persona of Obama.

But the thing is, the debates are an unfiltered look at the real Obama. No teleprompter. No one writing tweets for him. No media talking points crafted by a team of PR experts. Just the real guy.

Its maybe the first look at the real Obama in 4 years. Anyone can have a bad day, and maybe that happened with the first debate. But if this pattern continues, we'll start to see the character Obama plays on TV is very far from the real guy.

Not saying this will make an Obama supporter go out and vote Romney. But it may deflate a lot of the enthusiam in his base. Look at how utterly stunned the crew on MSNBC was. They seemed confused and demoralized. And not because he lost, but because he was nothing like the guy they see give speeches everyday. And forget the undecided, this is an election that will be won by mobilizing the base.

What is especially rich to me is the demand for more details of the Romney economic and jobs plan....which have been spelled out in considerable detail for anyone curious enough to look for them...

...all this by the supporters of an incumbent who seems devoid of any plan at all to improve on 1.5% economic growth...create jobs...or reform entitlements in order to avoid the impending bankruptcy of Medicare and Medicaid...and slightly later on, Social Security...let alone deal with the monstrous unfunded liabilities we face in states and cities to pay for our public sector workers and retirees.

A demand for Romney proposed budget numbers is coming from supporters of a party whose Senate (controlled by them for the entire Obama presidency) has not even met their statutory obligation to propose a budget annually for consideration, for three and a half freaking years....without so much as a notice, let alone a protest, from the media.

A party that used to at least pretend to care about budget deficits has presided over four consecutive budget deficits of more than $1.3 trillion, when the largest deficit in our history prior to fiscal 2008 was about $450 billion. The only thing resembling a proposed "solution" to $1.5 trillion deficits by Obama is his "Buffet Rule" proposal to raise taxes on rich people...which would (in theory...or using static analysis) bring in about $50 billion a year...or about 3 percent of his annual deficits. In other words, an entirely unserious (and largely ideological) proposal. And it ignores the lessons of history...which say that if you raise taxes on rich people they will do something with their future dollars other than declare it as income to be taxed.

This is a party in complete denial about the cliff we are about to go over.

I've heard it said that whichever party wins this election won't win another one for 20 years, because they will be blamed for the Crash of '13 (or maybe '14) that is inevitable no matter who wins. This strikes me as making more than a little sense.

Obama looks strong. Maybe the Mayans were optimists.

"I believe it is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting." H.L. Mencken

Evidenced by the instant polling on who won the debate, MANY more voters were impressed with some of the common sense, plainly spoken ideas on how to create jobs and get the economy going than they were concerned about differences from the further right positions Romney adopted during the primary season while fending off Newt, Santorum, Curly, and Moe.

You sure do love pointing at that CNN poll don't you swerb? Check out who they polled and see why Mittens came out so far ahead. They didn't even sample enough people who were non-white, under 50, liberal, not Southern, or not college educated to even register in the polls. So yes, among the 50+, white, educated, Southern, conservative block that answered questions for CNN, Mittens did gangbusters. The amazing thing is that this was from CNN and not FoxNews.

The problem isn't that they did this, the problem is they're passing off their poll as a completely subjective and not noting the blatant ideological slant in the sampling. WEIRD. Weird how conservatives drone on and on and on about all the Obama favored polls having sampling problems (with zero evidence) and then blatantly do the same. But this is just par for the course for the conservatives this year. Just look at the rampant Republican voter fraud for another example of hypocrisy.

They didn't even sample enough people who were non-white, under 50, liberal, not Southern, or not college educated to even register in the polls.

Yes they did. That chart you posted was made up by a partisan hack. Just because someone makes up some numbers they wish were true doesn't mean they are.

From CNN:

The sample of debate-watchers in the poll was 37% Democratic and 33% Republican.

"That indicates that the sample of debate watchers is about four points more Democratic and about eight points more Republican than an average CNN poll of all Americans, for a small advantage for the Republicans in the sample of debate-watchers," adds Holland.

That's the beauty of statistics. You can cherry pick them when they're in your favor and dismiss them when they're not.

My favorite part of all of this is that Romney basically told 47% of the world to F off, yet 67% thought he won the debate.

And that 25% of the people actually thought Obama won. How delusional do you have to be to actually think Obama won that debate? That 25% should be euthanized in the name of Darwinism. The country would be infinitely smarter a generation later.

"It's like dating a woman who hates you so much she will never break up with you, even if you burn down the house every single autumn." ~ Chuck Klosterman on Browns fans relationship with the Browns

This is one of those elections where you can vote "bad" or "worse," given the fiscal cliff the nation is facing.

Here's part of it: 2012 debt service on $16 trillion = $240 billion. That's $240 billion that you libs will never get to use for better education, the "War on Poverty," the "War on Drugs," or any of the other social programs the federal government has been slavishly funding for the past 50 years.

That's $240 billion (not million) of taxpayer money being thrown right OUT THE WINDOW every year. That's at a 1.5% annual interest rate, which is what the federal government is currently being charged. If inflation were to force that rate up to 2%, 3% or 4%, the debt service would go up to $320 billion, $480 billion or $640 billion. When (not if) the national debt reaches $20 trillion, if the interest rate is 5% (a real possibility if the fed keeps printing money), that's $1 TRILLION to service the debt...every year.

The Democrats are unconcerned. The Republicans won't be able to come up with a viable debt-reduction plan until they admit they have to cut back the defense budget and raise taxes on everyone (which is probably never). And the voters apparently don't care, either — except for those wacky, wacky "teabaggers," who are more concerned about the financial strains that will be placed on their grandchildren than on themselves.

swerb wrote:And that 25% of the people actually thought Obama won. How delusional do you have to be to actually think Obama won that debate? That 25% should be euthanized in the name of Darwinism. The country would be infinitely smarter a generation later.

95% of the 25% are in the 47%.

Criminals in this town used to believe in things...honor, respect."I heard your dog is sick, so bought you this shovel"

Wanted to correct my numbers above about the Buffet Rule, the president's sole nod to the deficit. I was going from (faulty)memory, and I subsequently looked it up to be sure.

If implemented, it is estimated to generate about $37 billion/year, 25% less than what I guessed at above. That's about 1% of federal spending, and roughly 2-3% of the current levels of annual deficits. My bad.

"I believe it is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting." H.L. Mencken

e0y2e3 wrote:Non-sense, according to OJ Mitt represented the exact same platform he has been since the begining of the race!

As I said before, just a shit-show of a debate. A solid tactic to impress people, but intellectually it's bullshit.

Not that Obama having no ability to think on his feet and counter the lies is excusable either.

Eh, it is about winning when you are on a debate team. Only McCain has been to the left of Romney the last two cycles. However, great job Socrates, you discovered politicians flip-flop, present nebulous plans, and that debates lack integrity.

Polls, pfft. Like the exit polls in 2004? Believe it like religion.

"When a man with money meets a man with experience, the man with experience leaves with money and the man with money leaves with experience."

Not sure how anyone connects the dots between people who claim that Romney "won" to people that will vote for Romney. It's quite easy to say Romney "won" the debate and then turn around and vote for Obama anyway.

If the Steelers win tomorrow, I will admit they won... and then hate them all the same. Steelers fans will root for the Steelers if they win or lose, everyone else will root against them.

Yep, there might be a small contingent of people out there who haven't decided if they're Steelers fans or not yet - probably third graders in Youngstown. So a win or loss tomorrow could affect them. But most people already have their minds made up, and the results of some debate don't mean shit (which is why I don't bother watching them).

Hikohadon wrote:Yep, there might be a small contingent of people out there who haven't decided if they're Steelers fans or not yet - probably third graders in Youngstown. So a win or loss tomorrow could affect them. But most people already have their minds made up, and the results of some debate don't mean shit (which is why I don't bother watching them).

I'd counter and say 2008 was a unique election. Obama ran a masterful campaign, and really did promote a new tone that many who weren't honks would have appreciated. There is also the historic component, BLACK, that may have moved a certain number of voters.

IMO, I think there is a somewhat larger percentage of people up for grabs, but ya it is one debate and you do not need the in depth analysis of blogs to tell ya without continued follow-up its meaningless.

"When a man with money meets a man with experience, the man with experience leaves with money and the man with money leaves with experience."

Orenthal wrote:Gotta wait for more polls, then Nate Silver's take on those polls. Then I'll post my opinion again.

Exactly. No need to form any kind of opinions till we hear from Nate Silver. Forget the fact that 3 billion people were watching, the economy is in a terrible recession, and we have a sitting President offering no plan to get us out of this.

Everyone has made their mind up. All his supporters are locked in. Debates mean nothing.

"It's like dating a woman who hates you so much she will never break up with you, even if you burn down the house every single autumn." ~ Chuck Klosterman on Browns fans relationship with the Browns

Not that it matters, but Gallup poll has Obeezy up 5........ just sayin'. Pew has Mittens And The Magical Underpants up 4. But I heard they only sampled people from Waffle Houses in deep south with less that 12 "toofs" in their mouth.

"[19]Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. [20] There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. [21] So you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when in Egypt your bosom was caressed and your young breasts fondled."

Evidenced by the instant polling on who won the debate, MANY more voters were impressed with some of the common sense, plainly spoken ideas on how to create jobs and get the economy going than they were concerned about differences from the further right positions Romney adopted during the primary season while fending off Newt, Santorum, Curly, and Moe.

You sure do love pointing at that CNN poll don't you swerb? Check out who they polled and see why Mittens came out so far ahead. They didn't even sample enough people who were non-white, under 50, liberal, not Southern, or not college educated to even register in the polls. So yes, among the 50+, white, educated, Southern, conservative block that answered questions for CNN, Mittens did gangbusters. The amazing thing is that this was from CNN and not FoxNews.

The problem isn't that they did this, the problem is they're passing off their poll as a completely subjective and not noting the blatant ideological slant in the sampling. WEIRD. Weird how conservatives drone on and on and on about all the Obama favored polls having sampling problems (with zero evidence) and then blatantly do the same. But this is just par for the course for the conservatives this year. Just look at the rampant Republican voter fraud for another example of hypocrisy.

Yes, that bastion of conservatisim CNN. Thank God for MSNBC, the one true independent news station.

Are you saying that you think Obama won the debate? Because that's the crux of the issue here.

You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves-----Abe Lincoln

Let me tell you, if any of you douchebag empty headed stuffed suit nanny politicians tries to fuck with my bacon, I’m going after you like a crazed chimpanzee on bath salts. -----Lars